


Come and Collect

by twoskeletalshadows



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Almost Too Much Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dread Wolf and Halla, Eventual Smut, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Lavellan/Solas Angst (Dragon Age), Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Power Dynamics, Protective Solas (Dragon Age), Shameless Smut, Solas is Fen'Harel (Dragon Age), much angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:48:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29639043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoskeletalshadows/pseuds/twoskeletalshadows
Summary: “I told them to leave you. That you were mine.”Two years after the events of Trespasser, Fen'harel's troops are engaged with the Inquisition troops on the field. Lavellan is working to turn the tide of battle when she gets separated from her friends and things take a turn for the worse. Forced to protect her troops, she waits for the end.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel | Solas/Female Lavellan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42





	1. Come Crawling Back

**Author's Note:**

> This work is loosely based on listening to the song "Kingslayer" by Bring Me the Horizon over and over--just big battle vibes. The chapter titles come from lyrics from the song. I'll be continuing the work and getting into some smut territory as we go! Stay tuned!
> 
> Also this is my first ever fic, so let me know what you think *hides behind hands*.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: violence, power dynamics
> 
> The Solas/Lavellan dynamic has a lot of imbalances to it, so just throwing this up right off the bat.

She’d fought for so long. The light was fading on the field, and blood was everywhere. She slashed out with her staff, the bolt of electricity catching one of the enemy soldiers at his knees as she leapt, spinning, the green-yellow blade of crackling energy that extended from the metallic surface of her new hand arcing out to sever a head. And then another. A slash, a parry, and then a cut. Over, and over. Too many of them rushed her, and she screamed, slamming the staff into the earth and watching with grim satisfaction as they all burst into flames around her. She swept the sweat from her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving them to burn.

On the rise, Cass and Dorian fought alongside one another, the mage clearing her path from the bluff. Sera materialized in the melee and cut down one of the soldiers aiming for Cass, brushing past her as she faded back into shadow. In the valley she could see Cullen rallying those around him, shouting instructions while Leliana covered his back. She felt rather than saw Cole come to check on her, briefly, his hand gliding against hers as he passed.

She grinned savagely into the smoke and haze. Even after everything the thrill of battle still sung its heady song, her body having memorized all the steps long ago. She danced through the field, barely touching the ground as she cast and cast, pulling the spells from herself through sheer force of will. She wished she felt it more, as she had long ago. Wished it took everything in her to summon the power. But those days were gone—had been wiped away by years of unending combat, her team at her side, her body wracked with the tremors leftover from the Anchor.

Her mood soured abruptly. Without looking she erected a wall of flame between herself and an advancing cavalry charge, pulling the Ring of Doubt from her pocket and sliding it over her finger. She had to get back to the hill. The advance was pouring in from the mountainside now, threatening to drown the valley in sheer numbers. Cullen and his squadron were already in retreat. She faded into shadow as the ring clutched her in its grasp—but not fast enough.

An arrow thudded into the right side of her chest, stunning her, dispelling the ring’s cloak in a haze of purplish smoke. She gasped, twisting to see where the arrow had come from. On the rise, Dorian let out a harsh cry, feeling her magic stutter.

“Get the Inquisitor!” he screamed.

Cullen’s head turned in the distance. The soldiers from the cliffs were too close, drawing closer—if he came to her aid he and the soldiers with him would be trapped between the oncoming charge and the existing army. With a hiss through her teeth she raised her staff and pointed it toward him, raising a wall of ice between them, and then another. A sign. _Stay back, you idiots._

She stumbled forward, headed for the hill where Dorian and Cass were reassembling the remaining troops. Blood leaked through her platinum fingertips, and she resisted the urge to draw both hands to the wound, keeping her staff upright ahead of her. She spun a quick circle, looking for the archer that had caught her. The enemy soldiers were so close, almost upon her. She wouldn’t make it to the hill in time.

With a heavy sigh, she stopped walking.

She scanned the field, briefly, and then cursed herself for it. _Hope is worse than lyrium._

She turned to face them, staff held aloft. She lifted her hand away from the arrow in her sternum, hissing with pain but grinning when she saw the blood. She could work with that.

She closed her eyes, whispering in elvhen. When she opened them again they were fully silver-green, glowing. She knelt and slammed her bloodied palm into the earth. A hairline crack rose at her fingertips and then grew, swelling, pouring out away from her. She stood as the fissure in the earth grew by yards and yards, until it opened a chasm in the ground before the oncoming horde. Elves and humans toppled into the abyss of her making.

The high-pitched whisper of an arrow alerted her before the blow struck home. She leapt, twisting her body away from the attack. A bolt of fire struck her in the side, and she landed on all fours, breathing heavily, rolling to douse the flames. And then they were upon her.

Three mages and a few scattered soldiers advanced. She mustered her strength and swiftly cast a ward over herself, hoping to stave off the brunt of her pain before she could reach the bluff. She summoned the blade and with it the icy calm of all the knight-enchanters before her.

“Hi,” she greeted them. Then the field exploded.

Lightning fell around them, stunning each one in turn. They screamed, but she was already moving. One fell in a single, elegant sweep from her blade, blood and magic arcing into the air in her wake. She cast her staff backward, freezing one as she hacked down into another. Her feet barely touched the ground, and after a moment she realized she was levitating, her body untethered as it funneled vast quantities of magic through it. _Worse things have happened_.

She took them down, one by one. Her soldiers made it over the rise, securing the high ground as they regrouped for the next wave. Which, she realized, breathing heavily, may never come. She was making short work of them on her own, the field around her strewn with bodies. She tried not to look down at the elvhen faces.

Suddenly, at the center of the onslaught, a shuddering pulse swept through the soldiers, and a cloaking shield fell away. She stared, dumbstruck. There were more of them than they’d thought—so many more. More than she could have imagined would have rallied for him, in just a few short years. She choked back a sob. They had not anticipated so many, had left some of their considerable forces at Skyhold in the event that this was a feint.

 _I never do things by half measures_. Words whispered into her skin, into her hair. In the shadows of their bed. She bit her lip, willing the memory away.

“Lavellan!”

She twisted to stare toward the rise. They were building a shield wall, preparing. Cassandra’s hand was raised out of the throng, beckoning her toward them. Sera’s face emerged through the crowd, her red cheeks reddening further in fury.

“Come back, elfy!”

She started to smile, taking a step toward them. Another arrow struck her in her ribs.

With a cry of pain she buckled. Dorian shouted out from the hill. She rose, trembling, to her feet, walking forward and casting a ward over herself again.

Another arrow struck her in the back, laced with magic.

Rage built in her like a tide, pulling her away from the pain and out into the vast, heaving expanse of her magic. She whipped around with a snarl, raising her arms. Her feet left the ground as she cast spell after spell into the oncoming army. Their screams shook the air.

Behind her, her own army began to attack in small waves. _It will work. We can still—_

A blade plunged into her back, just beneath her ribs.

She dropped to her knees, screaming. A young elvhen man with long dark hair appeared in front of her, his armor smeared with blood, his teeth reddened with it. He laughed and buried a hand in her hair, yanking her head back.

“Inquisitor,” he said softly. “I’ll be a hero for this.”

She stared up at him, searching for remorse, for anything like kinship. He was younger than her, younger than so many of her own troops. He raised his green, wavering blade overhead, preparing for the killing blow.

She closed her eyes as her friends charged behind her. As they rushed down from the height, coming to her aid.

 _I thought I might see him. In the end_.

The blow never fell.

A heavy thud sounded next to her, loud on a field that was suddenly eerily calm. The hand in her hair fell away, and she collapsed onto her side, shaking, coughing blood.

Soft, predatory footsteps came near, the sibilant hiss of metal and leather the only sound.

“I told them.”

His voice was raw with fury.

“I told them to leave you. That you were _mine_.”

Warm fingertips brushed against her cheek as he knelt alongside her. Blood and dirt streaked his fine, arched cheekbones. The helm that shadowed his face was half-carved from a wolf’s skull, the pelt trailing down his back matted with gore. His eyes flared with magic—too much—pulses of green eddying in his irises. Even shrouded with power, his eyes were still sad as he greeted her.

“I told you I would not forget.”


	2. Castles in the Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas and the Inquisitor talk. A lot. Angst ensues.

He was the same but different. Prolonged power had winnowed him harder, prouder. Cruelty hovered in every line of his face, limned in firelight and the bloodied red of the setting sun.

 _Beautiful_.

The soft note of longing in his voice tugged at her in the same way it always had. In the same way she had imagined it might. She tried to raise herself from the ground but found she lacked the strength. Pain lanced through her with every movement. A growl sounded above her.

“Too eager,” he murmured. “It seems I need to be clearer with them in the future.”

His strong hands lifted her, even as she struggled against him, wishing that her body was less traitorous. Wishing that she didn’t want to sink into his arms and lie there forever.

It had always felt like falling, with him. Like leaping from a great height. Or being tossed. Her sense of gravity wavered either way.

He cradled her like something precious. Like they were two entirely different people, without the history they shared. A warm, familiar rush of healing magic surged through her at her sternum, and she cried out, writhing in his grip and kicking at him. It surprised him enough that he dropped her, and she began to crawl away from him.

“Vhenan.”

He reached out to her and she struck out with her metal hand, slapping his hand away. His eyes flickered dangerously. She could see that he’d grown used to power—it hovered in every line of his proud body, lingered in the faint tilt to his lips.

“You don’t get to call me that,” she rasped. Her vision wavered. Even with the first wound healed she could feel herself fading. The blade in her back had been artfully placed.

He started to reply and then looked up, glancing to the left. She followed his gaze and paled when she saw her friends slamming their fists, their blades, their magic into the shield he’d summoned between them. He turned his attention back to her.

“You always could command their loyalty.”

“They’re friends,” she spat, every breath causing her body to spasm with pain. “They were yours.”

He shook his head with a sad smile, leaning forward over her. She protested weakly as he drew her back into his lap, healing one of the arrow wounds with another warm outpouring of magic. The arrow protruding from her ribs fell to the earth. Her head throbbed horribly in the aftermath of the healing, and she sobbed as she allowed herself to go limp in his embrace. He shushed her quietly, stroking the hair away from her forehead. He scanned the field around them, taking inventory as she had seen him do a thousand times before.

“I think they have this all in hand.”

He stood in one fluid motion, taking her with him. She stared toward her friends, framing apologies with a mouth that could barely move. She saw Dorian surrounded by the heavy pulse of necromantic magic, his eyes blackening with the weight of it. Sera ducked as he threw everything he had into the barrier. It was like a bird striking a windowpane. He crumpled. She let out a strangled noise, clawing against Solas’ chest.

Solas—Fen’harel, now, in all his godly, greedy glory—rolled his eyes. He twitched his wrist, and Dorian’s chest heaved.

“They seek to keep you. As though you belong to them.” He laughed low in his throat. “As though anyone has ever been able to hold onto you.”

She fought to stay awake. “I would have let you hold onto me.”

He quieted at that, staring down at her. Holding her as she had imagined he might, while she was in her cups and sitting alone at the tavern. As she had begged him to, on her knees, the power of rifts and their own foolishness flaring around them.

His expression was remote, distant. “I’m here now.”

“You’re not,” she whispered. Darkness crowded in on her vision. She struggled for air, gripping his arms tightly. Suddenly fearful that despite his healing she might die. Now. Here. In his arms. “Solas—I’m dying—Mana, ma halani--”

The horror that flashed across his face nearly broke her apart. Cool determination solidified his features into a sneer of defiance. He murmured healing spells, pressing them into her skin with hands. His ash-stained fingertips could have all the lingering care of his lips, when he wanted. She sighed at the gentle touch. _It’s been so long_. “Today is not the day you die, vhenan.”

Physical relief flooded through her, more powerful than pain in its ability to lull her. She fought still. She stirred weakly in his grip, her eyes sliding closed. He pulled her in close, beginning to walk.

“Hush.”

“No,” she muttered. He laughed quietly, the sound thrumming through her.

“I was foolish to think it would fade.” His lips came down over her hair, close to her forehead. “Rest.”

“I can’t.” _Not while you live_. _Not with what you’ve done_.

“Hamin, vhenan.” The words carried the heaviness of magic as they sunk into her skin. They were meant to be a balm. She felt them as bonds, clamping down on her will. Bidding her sleep when nothing would be worse. She struggled against the geas until she could not. Until sleep took her with arms as strong and careful as those around her.

* * *

She didn’t dream. It unsettled her when she woke. She tried to slip back under, to resume the semi-lucid state she usually assumed before she woke, but the Fade would not answer. She opened her eyes reluctantly, trying to grasp at her magic. Nothing rose to her call. A tremulous sob hovered in her chest, waiting to be released.

She sat up instead, wincing as her body protested. She’d been healed by someone with skill—she could guess who. She looked around the large room she was in, fear sinking its teeth into her almost immediately. _Oh no._

Murals covered every wall. Painted in thick swathes of red, gold, green, blue, and black. Images from Skyhold, images of the Breach. Images of the Dread Wolf. And there, above the fireplace, an image of an elvhen woman with pale white hair. She shuddered, drawing her knees to her chest.

Her armor had been removed, as had her staff. She glanced at her hand, hoping that the Ring of Doubt still sat on it and frowning when she found it bare. She wore a thin black sleeping gown, one side hanging from her slim shoulders. She pulled it up around herself. Wherever they were, it was cold—her breath misted the air in front of her face, surprisingly fresh. Cool dread seeped into her. She had been washed, at some point. Gooseflesh rose on her arms and legs.

The bed she was propped up in was lush, covered in thick furs and heavily embroidered blankets. A bed fit for a god, four-posted and sagging with a velvet canopy. She pulled herself from its depths, stepping out onto the floor. Her legs shook. She was still weak.

 _I’ll kill him_.

The room was disheveled compared to his chambers at Skyhold. Papers were cast carelessly across the long desk in the corner, and books were stacked haphazardly near the bed and low seat near the cavernous fireplace. A sunken pool cast steam into the room nearest the window and looked to spill out onto a balcony that was open to the room. _No wonder it’s so cold._

A wardrobe stood to the side, halfway open. She reached inside without hesitation, drawing a black velvet cloak from its depths, its sleeves rich with golden thread. Sneering in disgust, she dropped it to the floor, and then spent the next few minutes amusing herself by casting all his fine clothes to the ground until she found a simple, nearly threadbare green cloak. She wished it didn’t smell so much like him as she drew it over her skin.

Light spilled out from a doorway. She crossed to the door, trying the lock. It was, to her great surprise, open. She pushed it ajar, glancing out into the hall beyond. Torches ran the length of the hall at disjointed intervals, sputtering with Veilfire. The hall itself was old—remnants of long-forgotten tapestries swayed in the faint, sourceless breeze.

She walked unsteadily down the hall, running her hand over the smooth stone. Voices carried from the end of the hall, where yellowish torchlight flickered beneath a heavy oak door.

“—they will come for her—”

“And they will be disappointed.”

“—some travelled with her through the Eluvians before, they might—”

“The route is blocked. Have we not existed all this time without detection?”

“If she uses her magic to reach them—”

“I have placed sufficient wards upon her to prevent that.”

She felt her palm sliding down the wall in shock. The emptiness was real, then. The way she reached for the vastness of her magic and felt it yanked from her grip. She went to her knees, uncaring when the hard marble of the floor bruised them.

“This was thoughtless, Fen’harel.”

There was a heavy, chill pause. Her lips twitched. Solas might have balked at being questioned—she was certain Fen’harel would be less lenient.

“As were the attempts to kill her without my knowing. Speaking of which...”

There was a sound of chains striking the floor, quickly followed by the smack of bodies against the ground. She flinched.

“—Please, Fen’harel, ir abelas—”

“Ma ghilana mir din’an…”

She rose to her feet at the sound of the prayer. _Guide me into death_. A prayer not for clemency, but for a merciful sentencing. She had to stop him.

She pushed against the door with a trembling hand, wincing as it creaked horribly. She regretted it as soon as it swung open into the long room. There were so many in the hall—their faces drawn and smeared with the marks of battle. Their eyes burned as she looked up into them, their vehement dislike so fierce and plain that she brought a hand up to the wound over her chest.

He sat at the end of the hall, propped in a plain seat of heavy black stone. One leg was draped over the arm of the chair, his long body sprawled in arrogance. His eyes widened visibly as she walked into the room. His gaze swept over her frantically before his cold mask resettled itself.

Before him were three elvhen soldiers, their hands and feet bound with lengths of heavy chain. They trembled before him.

She walked forward, ignoring the way her knees shook. Ignoring the eyes on her as the strode the length of the hall. As the Inquisitor, she had suffered every kind of look imaginable. Every muttered insult and quiet scoff. None of it could harm her anymore. It was power’s imperviousness, and she knew that he wore it like armor, as she did.

She stepped in front of the soldiers on the floor, holding out her hands to him.

“Spare them.”

A ripple ran through the room at her words. He stared down at her from the dais, his throat bobbing as he swallowed, once. She tried to muster any kind of fear but found herself incapable of it. He was Fen’harel, elvhen god of lies, but he was also Solas. Solas had brought her here. Solas was who she would speak to. Anything else between them was playacting. In spite of every lie, she _knew_ him. Knew him and couldn’t fear him.

He looked at her, his eyes beginning to glow faintly.

“What heroics, Inquisitor. Do you think this pageantry will earn their sympathies?”

“No,” she answered honestly. “I don’t want anything from them.”

“Wise,” he said. He looked at the assembled. “Foolish, but wise. Why should I spare them? They sought your life.”

“As did you, in your way. Will you fault them for your weakness?”

It was the right thing to say, and absolutely the wrong thing. His eyes flared red, just a flash. Enough to send the attendants nearest him scuttling backward toward the shadows.

“Leave us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More angst coming up, but in the meantime have some elvhen: 
> 
> Vhenan - my heart  
> Ar lath ma, vhenan - I love you, my heart.  
> Hamin, vhenan - Rest, my heart. (my own combo translation, likely inaccurate)  
> ir abelas - I'm sorry  
> Ma ghilana mir din'an - Guide me into death.
> 
> All Elvhen is courtesy of Bioware.


	3. Twist the Knife

The people in the room left quicker than she would have thought possible, what with the hall only having two doors. As they pulled one of the chained men away, she heard him spit on the ground at her feet. _Fine. They don’t owe me anything._

Once everyone had left, she relaxed slightly, swaying on her feet. His expression didn’t change, but he held out a hand.

“Come here.” His voice was command itself, unbending. 

“Will you make me if I refuse?” she asked quietly. She flexed her hands for emphasis, willing magic to her palms. When nothing happened she felt panic rising in her chest, stifling it before it could grow.

“I would never cause you—”

“We’re beyond that. The ‘I will never do something to you against your will.’ I’m here, aren’t I? Wherever this forgotten temple of yours is. Whatever lines you’ve drawn within that distinction are your own. I don’t need to appreciate them to assuage any of your guilt, _Fen’harel._ ”

His gaze flicked away from hers. “You were dying.”

“You could have let me.”

He scoffed lightly, his lips curling. “I—” He ran a hand across his head, an anxious gesture that was so familiar she rocked back slightly. “I could not.”

It wasn’t a shock to hear it. If anything, she had resigned herself to it. She had been unable to let him go, had wished him there in what she had thought were her final moments. Their grip on one another was an echo, traveling back and forth endlessly, creating nothing.

“Where does that leave us?” she asked. The question echoed down through the drafty hall. She shuddered, drawing her arms around herself.

“Come here,” he said softly. All trace of red was gone from his eyes. “Please.”

She was walking before she could stop herself. She stepped up onto the dais, wincing at the cold marble beneath her bare feet. Without her magic she felt weak, small in the shadow of his throne. He took her hand in his and guided her to his lap, one hand stroking smooth, soothing lines down her back. Heat and power pressed up against her at every brush of his clever fingers. She hated how easy the contact was. The way nothing in her fought against it.

His free hand made a sigil, a rune to inspect her with. Satisfied that whatever he had done was healing her well enough, he pulled her feet up to rest on the other side of his thigh, cradling her to him. She closed her eyes, unable to look at him.

“You stripped my magic.”

“They would not allow me to keep you with it intact.”

“Keep me?” She tilted her head back, freezing when she felt his head incline toward her neck. “Is that what you plan to do?”

“For the moment. Your army is scattered. Your commanders are—” She tensed in his arms, preparing for the worst. He sighed, pressing his face to her hair. “Safe, for the time being.”

“Why?”

“Because I will it. And because their objective has now shifted.” He smiled faintly, straightening. “Their search for you will distract them from their efforts against me. I wonder that I didn’t do this long ago.”

She pulled herself from his grasp, stumbling onto the dais. A rush of vertigo swept through her. She braced her hands against her knees. He moved, as though he might reach out for her, and then thought better of it. She stared up at him, breathing heavily.

“I hate you.”

It was a weak jab. His smile widened to show teeth. He leaned back against the throne.

“As you should. Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

He waved a hand and caught her as she fell forward into him, sleep closing in again with all the power of his will behind it.

* * *

She failed to dream again. It was a loss she felt keenly—sleep was a kind of solace, but dreams were perfect. A space that had remained untainted by the bad of him. Only the good had lived in the Fade when they were both there together.

Without it, she felt set adrift, untethered. She woke unsatisfied.

Her arms were draped over his muscled chest, which rose and fell steadily beneath her palms.

“Good morning.”

She flinched away from him. She scrambled to sit back against the headboard, drawing the gown over her knees. “Why are you here?”

“This is my bed,” he said blithely. A trace of the humor she knew—craved—flickered in his eyes. “And you were restless, crying out in your sleep. I came to check on you and you quieted when we were like this.” He gestured down himself, at his relaxed, lean body.

“You cut me off from the Fade,” she said, her voice hoarse. His eyes widened, troubled. He sighed heavily, sitting up.

“I knew it would separate you from it.”

“A fate worse than death, I think you once called it,” she said, curling her lip in derision. “Like being Tranquil. And yet, one you would inflict on me.” Her eyes widened suddenly, horror sweeping through her. "Solas, did you—"

"No," he said quickly, affronted. "I would never. But what would you have done, in my position? Keep a mage of great power active within my walls, or restrain her?"

“What an unfair question,” she muttered. “As though I would ever take you somewhere against your will, Solas. As though I could do any of this. To anyone.”

She knew him well enough to read anger in his silence. She rose from the bed, glad to see his things were still scattered across the floor. She followed her nose to the desk, where a tray of food had been set out and forgotten. She took a piece of bread from the plate and gnawed on its end, taking another look at her surroundings. They were high in the air—clouds obscured the air beyond the balcony. Even so, she could tell that they were near the sea—the faint tang of salt hung in the air. She looked back toward him, absently slicing into and paring off a sliver of sweet blood orange with a knife.

He watched her warily, as though she was an animal. Easily frightened. A swift, hungry pang of dread ran through her. There was a distance to him now. There had always been a distance, but this was vast. Renewed over and over the more prayers he received. _Does he talk to anyone now?_

She studied him as he did her, adopting his clinical stillness. He had grown stronger—even across the room, disconnected from her magic, she could feel the ravenous pulse of his power. His nails were grown long, blackened at their ends. The asceticism that had governed Solas was nowhere to be found in Fen’harel. Every movement was lavish, unrestrained. The room was decadent, the food rich. Even his sleeping clothes were well-made—and deliciously rumpled against his slim frame. She took up one of the waiting goblets, pouring a generous helping of wine into it. He made a noise behind her as though he might protest, but she merely shot him a withering look over her shoulder.

“I have the day,” he said, surprising her. “The others have all gone, at my behest. I can spend it with you, if you wish.”

Her mouth fell open. “Why would I wish that?”

His expression closed. “I won’t be able to see you much in the coming months. This may be one of our only opportunities.”

“To do what, exactly? Pick up where we left off?” She laughed, the sound high and strained. “Solas, you’re keeping me captive. It doesn’t incline me to be social.”

“I did save your life,” he muttered. It was as close to petulant as she’d ever seen him.

“Are you planning on letting me go?”

His mouth turned down at the corners, his fingers forming fists against the blanket. That hadn’t changed, at least. The possessiveness. Solas’ affection was a focused thing. That it had been powerful enough to turn his attention from his work meant that he was beholden to it—or had been. She shuddered as he watched her, recalling flashes of their time together. When he had sought to make her understand how wholly enthralled he was. Her gaze strayed to his nails before she could catch herself.

_What of Fen’harel’s affections?_

“That’s a no,” she murmured. She shook her head sadly. “Solas, I can’t just stay here.”

“Will you promise to stop rallying your forces against me?” he asked quietly, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course not.”

“How can I release you, then? Leader of the Inquisition. She who rallies kingdoms against the Dread Wolf. The Herald of Andraste.”

She snorted dismissively, taking a long draught of wine. Her eyes widened and she glanced down at her cup. He smirked.

“Delicious, is it not? As our resources grow I find myself taking liberties with the supply orders.”

“How very unlike you,” she said, looking away from him. She took another sip, looking toward the bath sunk into the floor of the room. The steam drifting from its surface carried the scents of pine and loam—familiar, forested scents that reminded her of the Free Marches. She wondered, briefly, if the oils added had been for her benefit, and then remembered how she had awoken the first time.

“Did you bathe me?”

The question seemed to alarm him. He rose to his feet, coming toward her faster than she might have liked. His limbs were all liquid grace. “No. I used magic to tend to your wounds and then to clean you, to prevent them from infecting.”

“Did your magic brush my hair?”

His jaw twitched. “No.”

Without thinking, she brought up a hand to touch the strands around her face. He was close enough that she saw his eyes dilate at the movement. He had always loved her hair—likely, she had teased him, because he had none of his own. She started trembling.

“Vhenan?”

He gathered her into his arms, folding her against him in an achingly familiar way. She barely heard the faint mewl that left her lips. She fisted her hands against his shirt, noting the way he started when her fingertips brushed against his bared chest as her grip pulled the fabric back. She swallowed desperately and then ceased her efforts to hide her tears. She would need to cry eventually—some small part of her took joy in making him watch.

He brushed the first tear away, his hands gentle against her face. As though she was some delicate thing, and not a creature hardened by war. By loss. Betrayal at his hands and so many others.

He had always understood her. His genteel voice was low as he began to speak. “There is nothing wrong with hating me. With hating this. For what it’s worth—so do I. I hate every moment of pain I have caused you. I have wandered the Fade, watching you, for years—”

“I saw you,” she said, gasping wetly. He nodded, his eyes searching hers.

"That was all I planned to do. I would not have intervened if they had not—” Rage flared in his eyes, his cheeks flushing slightly. He tipped his forehead to hers, his hands coming up to grip her forearms. “It was never my intent to see you hurt.”

She laughed, pulling out of his embrace. His hands tightened on her arms, as though he might hold her in place, before allowing her to move. She released his shirt, bracing her palms against the table. “You failed miserably, I’m afraid.”

“Are you?” he murmured. Seemingly unable to help himself, his hand came up to cup her cheek. Equally helpless, she leaned into his touch. Her skin sang at every point of contact between them. “Are you afraid?”

“Of you, Solas?” She smiled faintly, closing her eyes. “Of course not.”

His mouth came down to hover above hers. “Good.”

She slammed the knife up between his ribs, as Cole had taught her, up and with a twist. It slid into his bared chest, her metallic fist colliding with his skin in a wet thud. He stumbled backward, his mouth a perfect circle of shock as he brought his hands down over the knife.

She ran to the door, not taking the time to look back at him. She only looked back when she was across the hall, the door to the throne room clutched in her hands.

The transformation had wrought itself in the space of moments. He stood braced in the doorframe, removing the knife from his ribs, blood spattering the marble. He waved a hand over his chest, his lip slowly curling into a snarl. His eyes flared with power, bright green, and then red as a second, then third pair of eyes flickered open along his forehead. Slitted, red, and narrowed with rage. He bared his teeth, panting.

She shut the door and kept running.


	4. Where Your Loyalties Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mean Solas.

_Storage room. Storage, and maybe the prison? Where do we keep confiscated goods at Skyhold…_ She ran through the halls, having locked the door to the throne room behind her. She cursed the elf who had stabbed her again. Without magic she _felt_ her body’s insufficiencies more than she normally would, the driving pain of each labored breath where her chest heaved over her ribs, the sharp impact whenever her bare feet struck the stone.

_Of you, Solas? Of course not_.

She laughed as she ran. Sera had once described him as predatory—unaware of how truly correct she was. He loved to _work_ for his victories, but he loved the moment of surrender even more. It pleased her in a small way, that she still knew how to lower his guard.

The building was empty, as he had promised. His troops were likely all on the field once more, destroying any progress her people might have made. She gritted her teeth and ran on. She would be useless if she couldn’t at least access her gear. The Ring would allow her to hide, and maybe surprise him in releasing her magic.

Already she knew she’d be caught. It was a fool’s errand. He was a god, or something like it. But waiting in his room day after day was worse, somehow. Every instinct rebelled against it, bid her run. Tracking, hunting, lying in wait—those things she knew. They were instincts she trusted.

_And I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t at least try_.

The passageway began to curve downward, opening up to the elements at certain points. The structure reminded her of the lost library within the eluvians, crumbling but beautiful. Reliefs of wolves and hallas met her gaze everywhere she looked.

“I will find you.”

His voice rang through the entire building, and she paused as she felt the floor beneath her feet tremble.

“You cannot run, vhenan.”

_Wrong_ , she thought. She took off, her feet barely touching the ground. Adrenaline poured through her, almost like magic, banishing the pain in her chest and buoying her up.

The presence of a dungeon implied a lower level, so she ran until she found a flight of stairs leading downward. She slowed, taking them two at a time and landing hard in a dimly lit room. A few tables were set to the side, along with banded iron chests. She went to the desks first, finding a quill pen and testing its strength with her fingers. She used it and another pen to fish in the padlock over one the chests, hoping it would open. When the quill-tip snapped she stood with a sigh. _Sera would be disappointed_. The second chest, however, was open, and she threw back the lid. It was halfway emptied of bottles of the same vintage she’d been drinking. Tempted to smash its contents, she closed the lid, turning instead to the door. 

She let out a low, broken laugh as she stepped into the room. The stone room was circular, veilfire crackling dissonantly along its walls. At its end was an eluvian.

She walked toward it, running a hand along its frame. The faint waver to its surface indicated its activity. She looked up toward the ceiling, wondering if passing through the door might loosen the hold Solas had on her magic. The surface of the door rippled as she passed a hand along it, shuddering. Even seeing the eluvians dredged up old memories. Running with Bull, Dorian, and Sera through the holes in the world. Racing to reach the end of what had felt like a long maze of lies and deceits. A maze that led, inevitably, to him.

Always, inevitably, him.

The soft tread of his footsteps echoed down the stairs.

His voice was a caress, lingering in her ears, trailing along her jaw. “You cannot hide from me.”

She threw herself into the mirror with his laughter ringing through the air.

She collapsed onto a platform, the wind buffeting her through her loose dress. She scrambled unsteadily to her feet. All around her the sky stretched out, foggy gray and vast. The top of a tower, perhaps, its only structure a thin stone barrier between her and the open air. Worse, there were no exits. If she wanted to leave, it would be through the eluvian, or over the side.

She edged toward one of the railings, not trusting them enough to place her weight against it. She craned her neck to look over the edge. Below, hundreds of feet down, the sea slammed into a cliffside. She tried to place where they were, her mind whirring as she struggled to recall what he had told her of the elves of old, when he came through the eluvian.

Blood marked his footsteps. The red eyes remained, as did the savage snarl on his face. “Miss me?”

“Sometimes,” she answered honestly. Seeing her immobile against the stone barrier, his shoulders came forward, his head inclining toward her as he stalked toward her.

Watching him move, she understood his epithet. Wondered how she had not always known. The Dread Wolf stared down at her, his chest heaving, the puncture in it healed but his clothing still streaked with blood. His nails seemed to have grown slightly longer. There was nothing of Solas in his gaze—only fury, and fire.

“What did you intend?” he asked, placing his hands on either side of her, pinning her against the rail. She didn’t struggle, all too aware of the drop behind her. His chest heaved, his magic swirling all around them, green energy roiling over his skin.

“Steal my things, make a run for it,” she offered. “Where are my clothes, by the way? That armor was expensive.”

“Worth my life?” he said, dangerously soft, the edge of a growl in every word. “Consider it burned. The rest of it too.”

He was shaking. The hands that gripped the rail drove into the stone, crumbling it beneath them. For the first time, she felt a twinge of fear as she looked at him. So little of the reserved man she knew resided in his gaze—but then, that was not the man she’d fallen for. She’d fallen for the man whose laughter she could unwind like thread unspooling. Whose sharp words made her smile into her hand. Whose awe for the world around him was unwavering. Whose eyes followed had followed her, filled with an intensity she had never expected. Had never wanted, until she got it, and realized how ruined she was for anything else.

“I need my magic, Solas,” she whispered, uncertain. “You’ve been without it, too. It feels like drowning.”

His mouth twisted into a hard line. “What a way to convince me that you deserve it,” he breathed. “That you could be trusted with it.” She sucked in a breath. His eyes tracked the rise and fall of her clavicle. He licked his lips, and then his gaze darted up to hers. He leaned in closer. Unthinking, she tilted her head back, as she had in the throne room, staring up into his eyes. It was an old rhythm, and she flushed as she realized what she’d done.

He laughed, low and rough. Cruel. “You’re aware you stabbed me, correct?”

“If a kitchen knife could kill a god, I’d be even less of a supplicant than I am now.”

He blinked. And then he laughed. Startled, amazed, and _hers_ , for one fleeting, perfect second. A breathless, fond smile rose to her lips. He touched it with the edge of one of his talonlike nails, causing her to shiver. He stood back suddenly, releasing the railing.

The stone ledge shattered as he pushed away, toppling backward. With nothing to support her back, she lost her balance. She reached for him as the rest of the railing fell away. Reached for him as she fell toward the empty sky.

His hands shot out to grip hers, pulling her back to safety. He tumbled backward as she crashed down on top of him, flush to his body. A cry of pain escaped him as her forearms pressed down into the bruise forming on his stomach, but he didn’t release his grip, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

“That’s twice.” He sounded upset, but restored, the low reverberation gone from his voice. He sat up, keeping her steady in his lap. The doubled eyes along his skull sealed themselves over, vanishing from his skin. His remaining eyes were wide with evident annoyance.

“Twice, now. More, if we count Skyhold, the Graves, that time in the Approach. When will you not require saving? Var lath vir suledin, or don’t you remember? It cannot if you continue—”

She slapped him. Cass would have approved. The blow landed soundly on his jaw, rocked his head back. Lightning surged through her, raw fury causing her to shake. When he turned his face back to her, an angry red imprint on his angled cheek, there was no fervor in his gaze, only confusion.

“Those words are _mine_. You failed to return them—you don’t get to use them now. Not here. Not—” Her voice broke. “Not like this.”

It was the last string to break, the death knell of her composure. She started crying and it felt like she might never stop. She wept, her shoulders heaving. He stiffened beneath her, and then gathered her into his arms. “Ir abelas, vhenan.” He stroked her hair, his long fingers running along her back. “Ir abelas.” He murmured consolations into the top of her head.

It was too much. Him, the tower, the constant fighting. All of it crashed down on her in a single, titanic wave, and she sought the only comfort she trusted, the only comfort she _knew_ he could give. The only thing that wasn’t a lie.

She took his strong jaw in her fingertips, drawing his face to hers. He hesitated, pulling away before she could close the distance between them.

“Are you certain?”

_Not at all. Not of you_.

“Make me.”

His eyes flashed at the challenge. He sighed. “Trust is earned. Gifts, however?”

He brought his lips to hers and spoke against her mouth. “Gifts I give freely.”

He kissed her and poured her magic down through the contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is really gettin' away from me. Once again stay tuned for smut lol.


	5. Is This What You Want?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Shall I show you how a god would supplicate?"

Green. The power that flooded into her was green, and blue, and every color, and there was so much of it she wasn’t sure she could contain it. Without lingering magic as a guide for it her mind rebelled, seeking shelter from the onslaught. She arched in his grip, boneless as her body trembled. She whimpered, struggling to remain upright, struggling to maintain _herself_ as the magic of the Fade and the earth roiled and tumbled through her.

His magic brushed up against hers, alien and shadowed, but familiar, too. It coaxed her mind into acceptance, wrapping itself around her and guiding her power back to her. It forged a connection, a link, in the spare moments where it settled her. The truth struck her in a rush. _He kept it with him to keep it safe_.

It was a small balm, but it was enough. She moaned into his mouth, straddling his hips. He grinned against her lips, his arms sliding up to support her back. She drew away, her eyes half-lidded with desire, her cheeks flushed with power.

“Is this what you want?” he asked softly. There was tenderness in his gaze she wanted to ignore. She smoothed a hand across his beautiful face, looking at it for what felt like the first time. Faint lines had darkened around his mouth, his eyes. Power agreed with him and it didn’t. His eyes were the same, at least for the moment.

“I want you,” she said simply. “That has not changed.”

He closed his eyes. As though he had expected a different answer. He pressed his forehead to hers. “I do not deserve you.”

“You never did,” she whispered. Wicked fire was lighting in the places where their skin touched. She wanted more. Wanted to burn. “Do as you are bid, Dread Wolf.”

He looked down at her impassively, though some part of him clearly balked at the mere mention of an order.

“Take me.”

* * *

He carried her back to his room, her legs wrapped around his waist, kissing her neck in an unending outpouring of tingling heat. He supported her with one hand, the other wound deep into her hair. He released her only to shut his door with a flick of his wrist. She drew back with a gasp at the sound, breathing hard. His lips were flushed, and she was sure her own were darkened, bruised by the force of his kiss. His expression was hungry, tense. The torches in the room dimmed until they burned low, barely embers—the fire in the fireplace sunk down into itself. He knelt with her in his arms, settling her on the edge of the bed. She couldn’t help but smirk at the sight of him.

He tilted his head to the side, his frown a question. She smoothed the line between his brows with her fingertip.

“How many can say they’ve brought Fen’harel to his knees?” she asked.

A savage grin— _when did his canines get like that_?—lit on his features as he pressed one hand into her waist, tilting her chin down toward his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. “Only you.” He released her chin to slide his hand down her slender neck, gripping it with faint pressure. His eyes narrowed with predatory focus as his thumb pressed against her pulse. “In the ways that matter? Only you.”

“Does kneeling mean anything, though? To a god?” Her words were light, teasing.

“I told you before god was not a title I wanted,” he said. The pressure on her throat increased slightly. “Though I do know something of worship, now. Should I show you? Shall I show you how a god would supplicate?” He lowered his lips to the hollow of her throat, teeth skimming the sensitive skin there. “Will this make you hate me more or less, I wonder?”

“It would be difficult to make me hate you more,” she whispered. Remorse flashed over his features. She sighed, scraping her fingernails along the base of his skull the way she remembered he liked. His pupils flooded as he sat up from the floor with a hiss, gathering her close to him.

He kissed her, and it was better than the first. Slower, teasing, his skillful tongue drawing hers out and his teeth nipping at her lower lip. With a shudder she realized that she finally knew _who_ she was kissing. Fen’harel, elvhen rebel god, with thousands of years of experience. His nimble hands were careful as they slid down her ribcage through the dress, barely restrained strength hovering in his every motion. Solas had always been careful, too. She had seen flashes of the god, though, before. _Teeth on skin, magic and his hands drawing her to the edge over and over. The way he clutched her to his chest afterward, his hands and legs caging her within his grasp. The way he would bite her neck, just—_ there _._

She froze with his teeth against her collarbone, thrust forcibly back into the room with him. Her core throbbed, pulsed, heat flooding into her. She ran her hands down his chest, attempting to pull his shirt from his shoulders.

“Not yet,” he said softly, a trace of mirth in his tone. He held her wrists, turning her hands over. His eyes never left hers as he placed a kiss against her palm. He spoke into her skin.

“I would see you.”

He drew back, studying her for a long moment. His gaze fell to the blue-black bruise at her sternum. He ran a thumb over the hurt, letting out a heavy breath when she gasped at the light touch.

His lips parting, he reached toward the hem of her dress, never breaking eye contact. She held his gaze, swallowing hard as he drew the nightgown up over her shoulders and away from her body. She wondered what he saw. War—his war, she couldn’t forget, couldn’t afford to—had given her new scars. In a way, all the scars she had received through her work with the Inquisition could be attributed to him. He knew it, too, his eyes remote as he catalogued every single one.

One scar, though, was his in a distinct way. At the juncture of her left elbow, metal folded seamlessly into flesh. He studied the contours of her new arm, his eyes narrowed with academic interest as his fingertips traced the runes etched into the metal.

“Dagna made it,” she explained. The arm was a masterwork of magic and metal, studded with enchantments to make it even more useful. She flexed the fingers on it, marveling at their smooth movements. She had expected the arm to make her feel heavy, but if anything it only enhanced her actions in battle, serving as a focus for her magic much in the same way a staff might. Dagna knew her work.

He swallowed once, clearing his throat. “I think about it all the time. The way it was chance, the Anchor finding you. I was so angry when I learned of it. I did everything I could to keep you alive, just to have a chance to take it for myself, to do what I had to. I wasn’t saving you out of any compassion—it was my own self-interest.”

“Was?” she said, before she could stop herself.

He smirked, conceding with a nod. “Every motive I had then was founded on rage, on my perceived sense of having been wronged. I was angry. Proud, as is my wont. And then you walked up to me through the snow, fresh from a fight, your ears reddened by the wind, a staff in your hand. I was glad you were a mage, at least. It suited my purposes. I could mold you, I thought. Teach you and monitor you that way. But then you asked about the Fade. You were curious. You asked questions others would not. And I—I look at you now, at every scar, at every perfect piece of you and—I think all the time about how it could have been anyone, and yet it was _you._ ”

He swept the tear from her cheek with a soft brush of his fingertips. “Allow me to show you what you mean to me.”

The cold already had her heart in her chest, as did his words, but the long, hot tongue he ran along her exposed nipple in a sudden, lunging move made her arch into him, her hands scrabbling for purchase. He hummed with approval, bearing her back into the furs and blankets with inhuman strength, as though she weighed nothing. Every texture felt like too much, and she writhed beneath him, turning her face away from his as he nipped and licked his way over her breasts, down her ribs, the flat pane of her stomach. One hand teased the inside of her thigh, drawing fire against her skin, before he pushed her legs apart.

“Wait!”

He froze, tensing with his left hand pressed to her abdomen, his shoulders lowered over her pelvis. The hand against her thigh tightened.

“I would see you.”

Relief flickered across his mouth. He sat back on his knees, staring down at her. He removed his shirt slowly, teasing, and pulled it up over his head. He frowned when he saw her expression.

She sat up on her elbows, staring at him. “Solas…”

Scars riddled his lean frame, his chest, his abdomen, the skin of his shoulders. The skin was pulled taut, shining faintly in the dim firelight. His arms bore long marks, burns, old wounds that had healed poorly. There was barely an inch of him that had not suffered. He had been hiding, she realized. Hiding the truth of himself from her when they were together because it was written into his skin. Solas the apostate could not have suffered so much and survived. Fen’harel, god of rebellion, betrayer of the Evanuris, however… Fen’harel had suffered. And survived.

She raised trembling fingers to his heart, the skin above it a map of remembered killing blows.

He clasped the hand on his heart to his chest, his long fingers covering hers. “I was a poorer healer then.”

“I see that,” she said. He chuckled and then shuddered as her other hand touched him, her fingers traveling lower. He closed his eyes, breathing through his nose as she followed every scar with her eyes, and then her hands. And then her mouth. Trailing to his waist and the bulge that pressed up against his thin pants. She wanted him, wanted all of him, wanted to feel him inside of her.

He growled, pushing her shoulders back and pressing her into the mattress. He ran his fingernails along the inside of her legs, drawing an echoing sound from her own lips. She felt his nails retreat as he ran a fingertip up along her center, brushing ever so lightly against her folds. She bucked up against him, pinned in place by his hands and his chin. She was burning.

“Eager,” he murmured against her, tutting faintly in mocking disapproval. His tongue skimmed the sensitive skin just above her middle and she let out a soft, breathy sigh, glad that there was no one else in the castle. He seemed to realize the same thing, smiling against her skin.

“No more worrying about Josephine coming up the stairs,” he whispered. His low voice was sin, always had been. “No more hoping Dorian can’t hear from the library.”

“No more lies,” she said, gripping the sheets as he brought his face down and licked one long, lazy stroke over her clit. He laughed when she squealed and the vibration drew the sound out into a moan. He began to suck and lick and tease, driving one long finger into her and then another, until she writhed. He remembered every trick he had ever used to make her beg. He bit into the tender flesh of her thigh as he curled his fingers up, stroking along her walls.

She sat up in a flurry, surprising him. She gripped his jaw and pulled him toward her, kissing him hard. He indulged her as he slid his pants off, dropping them over the side of the bed where they landed in a heap of silk. She paused, watching as he worked himself with one hand, the other coming up to thread through her hair. A shudder of raw, genuine pleasure rushed through her as his hand tightened into a fist.

“Vhenan,” he said, reverently. He pressed his warm lips to her throat, worrying the taut expanse of it with his teeth. She ran her hands up and down his stomach, her fingertips brushing against his hardness. He hissed and used her hair to pull her down to the mattress, hard enough to elicit a gasp. She wrapped her legs around his hips, locking him against her—he could have easily pulled away, could have thrown her from the bed with the ease of flicking dust from his clothing.

It had been so long. There had been others, in between. Short, quick affairs to slake her lust and abate the ache that rose every time she dreamed. Every time she saw a wolf slipping through the trees of the Fade she would wake desperate, hands running over herself, pressing into herself, chasing the adrenaline and desire that lingered from her sleep.

She knew that he knew she’d been with others—he had been able to smell Dorian and Sera on her when she hugged them, even days later. She hoped he had, too, but she doubted it. He was, as ever, too focused, too intense. Until he was not. Until he was in her arms, intent and focused in an entirely different way.

He brought his hips against hers, grinding into her and watching her face as she inclined her hips up toward him. Focused, but cruel, even now. She grimaced, closing her eyes.

“Still?” she asked, knowing what he wanted. He slid his tip along the slickness waiting for it and drew a sigh from her, her entire body thrumming with need. His free hand slid beneath her back, drawing her up so that there was nothing but friction between them, her breast pressed against his torso. “I thought you were supplicating.”

“Indeed,” he murmured. His teeth scraped against her earlobe. “Even so, I would have this of you. What is prayer but transaction? A thing offered for a thing received.” She pressed into him with her heels, willing him forward, but his body was unrelenting against hers, stone still. She muttered curses at him as he hummed his amusement into her skin. He untangled his hand from her hair and brought it down to spin slow circles around her clit until she was limp, pliant in his arms. Until her entire body trembled, her thighs shaking around him. Her heart soared into her throat as she came against his hand, wound too tight to not unravel. He didn’t relent, continuing to pleasure her until she collapsed, lolling in his arms.

“Please,” she gasped, rewarded when his eyes flashed with hunger, with triumph.

He slid into her quickly, some leash on his control slipping at her plea, and nearly bottomed out. She breathed out sharply through her teeth, pain driving her to stillness. It had been so long, and he was larger than she was used to. With extreme care he lowered her to the mattress, murmuring consolations into her breast and punctuating each apology with his tongue, until she was no longer still, no longer struggling to adjust to him. His clever fingers stroked long lines down her hips, soothing her, before he yanked her up against his thighs, supporting her weight in his hands. He pulled out of her slowly, until she was aching with the lack of him, and then pushed back in.

They made the same noise, capturing one another’s mouths desperately. He set the pace, slow and languorous but full of barely restrained, feral desire. She was too close, her body unwilling to relax, and she came again as the fullness inside her moved in and out, rippling around him. She clung to him, keening, as the last shreds of his carefully crafted control vanished. Over and over he thrust himself inside her, ignoring her small hurts and making new ones with his long teeth and clawing nails. She marked him in kind, drawing redness up to the ridges of his back and sucking at his neck until he pulled her face away with a snarl. He stared deep into her eyes as his hips began to move erratically, bringing a single, gentle hand to her face. She searched his eyes frantically.

“Sol-ah—”

Her back left the bed, her eyes rolling back as she clawed at him. It was enough, more than enough. He came inside her with a heavy exhalation, shuddering, pressing his lips against her neck, her hair. She felt wetness fall to her cheeks and craned her neck to see him, to look him in the eye, but he stayed hovering over her. Soft curses in elvhen left his lips. Still within her he rolled onto his side, wrapping her around him. Tightening his grip on her as he pulled her against him, her heart stammering in her chest. There was a desperation to the way he clung to her. As though he feared the moment when he might have to let her go.

“I think you’ve earned your place, supplicant,” she muttered. She tried to pull away from him, to allow him to slide out of her, but he stopped her with a growl.

“Stay,” he said. A simple command. The most impossible task for them both.

She closed her eyes, nestling into him. His nails traced runes over her back, healing the marks that had been too rough, sinking more healing into the spot against her ribs where the blade had gone through. His healing was warm, druglike, almost, in its potency. She sighed as she fell into a deep sleep. Into the Fade.

She opened her eyes to a familiar copse of trees, the soft sway of the canopy against the stars overhead. Pine and crushed grass, the soft babble of birdsong in the distance. She grinned.

“You cannot escape me so easily.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *burrows beneath the earth*


	6. You Motherf*cking Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Dreamers wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mural mentioned is from the Dragon Age 4 trailer.

“Where are we, exactly?”

He went still beneath her. “I thought you might have been asleep.” He drew a warm washcloth over her back, soaping his other hand and massaging her shoulder.

Dreaming and waking had melded seamlessly together, uninterrupted, their bodies pressed together in every moment. She had ridden him in the Fade, their forms wavering, Fen’harel’s feral mask sliding over his appearance more than it had in the waking world. He had turned her over in the long grass, nails dug into her hipbones as he pinned her to the earth and thrust into her from behind, growling with his teeth pressed into her shoulder. When they woke, gasping together, he had carried her to the sunken pool that spilled over the balcony, sitting her astride him and soaking her hair, lathering both their bodies in fine soaps and oils until the sensation was too much and he had rocked into her, supporting all her weight in his hands and allowing her to drift as the stars rose overhead.

She hummed her pleasure into his collarbone as he pulled the washcloth over her shoulder, soaping her breasts and the tender flesh on the sides of her ribcage. “Am I not?”

He laughed low in his throat. “I imagined us doing this ages ago. Hovering between the Fade and this plane, gliding in and out of dreaming without truly knowing which state was which. Never breaking contact.”

“What an entirely predictable fetish for a Dreamer,” she said. She kissed his neck lazily, licking up its length until he shivered. “You never answered me.”

“I’m not sure how I can.”

She drew back, wincing as it adjusted their position. “You’ll notice I haven’t attempted to slap you again. Don’t tempt me.”

“At the risk of acquiring another injury, I will remind you that you also stabbed me.”

“An even better idea,” she said, smiling wickedly. She started to peel herself away from him, even though her skin sang with the wrongness of terminating their contact. His hands came down around her waist, holding her to him. She raised an eyebrow until he released her, his grip going briefly taut before his hands slid away. She swam toward the far side of the pool, surprised by how deeply fatigued she was. Her entire body ached, the places where the hurt ran deeper matched exactly to the places where he had marked her. Her abdomen was sore from being wrung out over and over, the backs of her thighs straining as she kicked. She faltered in her broad strokes and she felt more than saw him restrain himself from lunging toward her.

The portion of the pool that spilled out over the balcony had a slightly raised stone bench, so that one might sit and look out over the drop. She sat in the seat, amused when her feet could no longer reach the bottom of the pool.

“Was it a temple?” she asked, gesturing to the building. He sighed, leaning back in his seat and splaying his arms out over the lip of the pool. His chest gleamed with condensation, his cheeks red and flushed. Faint whorls of pink from her nails scored his shoulders. He knew she watched him and made the distance even more unbearable, staring down at her with his chin slightly raised.

“It was. It was ransacked.”

“By you?”

He smirked. “By others at my behest. It makes a good waypoint between the eluvians.”

“Which god did it once serve?” she asked, squinting toward the gray stone walls of the temple’s exterior. Ivy climbed along it, lush with thorns.

“So many questions,” he teased, his eyes thinning with approval. “To answer would be giving things away, I fear.”

“Would you prefer I ask something else?” she asked. Two could play at his game. She sighed breathily, draping one arm over the cool stone lip of the bath and leaning her head against it, one breast half-risen from the water’s surface. She saw the way his eyes darted to it and stretched, rolling her neck. “I could ask how long you plan to keep me, or what you’ll do with me when you return to the killing field. Which of my friends you’ll murder before returning to your bed and burying your face in my thighs.”

His mouth turned down slightly. “You think I would be so callous?”

“You saved Dorian only because it would have broken me apart to witness his death,” she said softly, her eyes clouding at the memory. “I have no illusions about your ambition, Solas, nor your capability for betrayal. I think I know better than most the things you’ll do to win this war.”

“You think you know me so well,” he said, his voice dangerously silky. “Have me mapped out like the territories on your quaint war table.”

“I’m being honest about our situation,” she bit back. “Which is more than you’ve been willing to do. What did you say before? Trust is earned?”

He stared at her for a long moment, his body hardened into predatory lines.

“Rivain,” he said finally. “Hidden by the mountains near the sea.”

She swallowed hard. It was more than she had expected him to offer. Upon swallowing she realized how hungry she was, and how desperately thirsty. She grimaced.

“You dislike Rivain?” he said, misinterpreting her discomfit.

She laughed, the sound strained. “No, I—I haven’t eaten in what seems to be a few days now, beyond that orange—”

“—And you barely ate it, you were too busy hiding the knife,” he said, understanding and faint annoyance flashing over his features. “You should have said. I’ll get you something.”

He started to rise from the pool and then paused, glancing down at her. As though he wanted to command her to remain, unmoving. He thought better of it, sighing as he stepped away from the pool and strode naked through his chambers, exiting through the door.

 _Rivain. Near the sea_. She glanced out into the open air, pointing one of her platinum fingertips out at the cloud cover around them. A gust gathered at her call, magic singing in her blood, before surging out into the open air. It pushed back the clouds somewhat, and she channeled the energy of storms within her, combining it with the cooling breeze to try and dissipate the haze. Her pulse pounded in her throat.

It was unclear what he would do if he knew she was using her magic—but then, surely, he already did. The temple was coated in a fine layer of wards, their energy pricking her skin since she was so close to the boundaries of the building. Her magic met a faint resistance as it pushed a few feet beyond the balcony, but the pressure was weak and dropped away after a moment. Likely built to keep things out rather than keep her magic in. She redoubled her efforts, directing the gale building at her hands downward, toward the sea.

Seconds passed by as she worked, but it felt like hours. Sweat beaded at her nape and her hairline, trickling down her neck. _Something, anything, before he returns._

The sea emerged, blue-black and studded with wavering starlight. The tower faced east, out into the sea’s openness. Using the moon and stars as her guide, she swept her keen gaze along it, hoping for a landmark. A landmass stood out to the south, a bare pinprick. _What’s that far from Rivain’s southern end?_

“Vhenan?”

She whipped around to face him, water rippling around her.

He stood with one eyebrow raised, a tray of food held in his hands. “What was that about trust?”

“I just wanted to see the sea,” she said sweetly. He rolled his eyes, clearly unconvinced. He settled the tray on the lip of the bath and strode back into the room. She swam toward it, her mind racing. The tray was covered with an array of fine food, simple but selected with care. She brought a slice of pale cheese to her lips, biting into it and then digging into the rest in earnest. There was no more of the wine she’d had before. For all his scattered morals, he did seem keen on keeping the ethical waters unmuddied, or at least translucent. She pulled herself out of the water and sat along the edge, picking apart a loaf of bread.

He shrugged a distinctly dirty, heavy-sleeved cloak on. Dried paint smeared its front and sides—a painting smock. She looked up at the murals as he sat in one of the armchairs near the fire, sipping at a mug of tea.

“You left me the mural,” she said quietly. “It was a kindness I didn’t expect.”

“I tried to warn you. To give you everything you needed.”

She stood, biting into an apple as she surveyed the paintings. The color palette had darkened—Fen’harel was infinitely more dramatic than Solas. A colossal black wolf stared down at a pale-haired elf, whose slender hand was held up against it. Futile, weak compared to its might. She bit her lip, avoiding looking at the image of herself above the fire, focusing on the larger piece. She put a hand out to the wall, stroking along the wolf’s dark pelt. Solas shuddered in the chair, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees.

“Would you let me paint you?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Again?”

He laughed, rising to his feet. He came close behind her, running his hands over her shoulders. “No. _You_ , vhenan.”

“To what end?” she asked, her words cutting off with a gasp as his hand slid between her legs, cupping her and running a finger along her heat. She leaned into his embrace, her breath hitching in her throat.

“You’ll allow me this mystery, I gather?” he asked, when she was panting against him, grinding into his hardness. She nodded mutely, allowing him to spin her toward him.

He took his time painting her, running the brush slowly along her every curve, reigniting every sleeping cell of heat and desire within her. Her knees shook as she stood—when she threatened to move or buckle he would hold her steady until she was still, his nails sharp against her flesh. He seemed to enjoy himself, standing back to admire her from time to time, his arousal standing up against his stomach through the smock.

Eventually, when she was swaying on her feet, he pulled away from her.

“Finished,” he said softly. He gripped her gently by the arm and pulled her toward a mirror standing in the corner of the room. She twisted toward him, seeking his mouth with hers, but stopped when she caught a glimpse of herself.

He had painted her paler, in stark white. Green markings fletched up her thighs, her waist, drawing in toward a pattern of looping, interwoven antlers that framed her breasts before swooping up to deepen the lines of her collarbone. Black paint separated her head from the rest—to have painted a vallaslin or something like it would have crossed a thousand lines. Instead, he had limned her eyes with black, drawing them down to almond points. Doe’s eyes, liquid and deep.

_A wolf and a halla_. Predator and prey—a sacrifice, rendered lurid and bared to his every whim. She began to shake, staring at herself in horror.

 _This is what he would have me become_. _What he has made me_.

Tears pricking her eyes, she summoned a smile to her lips. In her role false smiles were commonplace, but this one hurt. His lips skimmed her jaw, one hand smearing the paint at her waist.

“I would paint you,” she whispered. He nodded, busying himself with undoing his cloak as she swept forward, snatching a paintbrush and an open pot of deep navy paint. He raised an eyebrow at the color choice but said nothing, raising his arms to bare his chest to her.

“On the floor,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from being anything but cold. His eyes darkened with lust but he nodded again, lying back against the rug. She knelt and straddled his hips, pressing a hard, fierce kiss to his lips as she drew one of his hands across his eyes.

“No looking until I am finished,” she whispered. All of her was breaking apart. If he saw her face, he would know. He smiled against her lips, nodding once, pushing her hair back away from her forehead with such lingering tenderness she almost broke the pot over his head.

She leaned back instead, swirling the paintbrush through the paint. She would have to be quick. Precise. She began to work. Her hands shook. She used her shoulder to brush the tears forcibly from her eyes.

She pressed her hips into his, running her free hand along the muscles of his thigh to keep him occupied. He twitched beneath her but did as she asked, keeping his eyes closed and a hand pressed over them. The lines on his stomach came together quickly. It had been a few years, but she recalled the characters—focus clarified them, made her certain. Sera had spent hours teaching her, Vivienne, and Dorian, so that they could send messages between them in the garbled thieves’ cant of her agents.

_Rivain, across from Llomerynn. On the sea. Unhurt. Stay alive._

“Finished,” she said breathlessly. He lifted his hand away from his eyes, a playful smile on his lips, as she pressed her palm to the center of the magic circle and sent her magic flaring into it, to force the message to take and pass through the world to its destination. He convulsed with the force of it, shoving her roughly off of him with a snarl of surprise. He stared down at himself, trying to read the smeared runes upside down. His hands curled into fists. His voice smoldered with unchecked rage.

“Oh, vhenan. What have you done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite of the chapters so far, but I wrote it in a rush so forgive me if there are a bunch of crazy repetitions or errors. I'll be taking a tiny break on posting after this since I'm *exhausted*.


	7. In the Belly of the Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas and Lavellan *disagree*.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: violence, power dynamics
> 
> Adding these tags to the beginning, too just in case, since the Solas/Lavellan dynamic has lots of imbalances to it. Also this chapter is just overwhelming angst, my deepest of apologies.

“What have you done?”

His magic flooded the room, seething, pinning her up against the wall. He cast out a hand, scattering the goblets on the desk to the floor and sending papers whirring up through the air. She gasped as her back met the hard stone and he released the magic, green flaring at the boundary of his eyes.

“Not enough.” It wouldn’t be enough. Not until she was back with her soldiers, back with her friends.

"You _used_ me!" She’d only ever seen him yell a few times. His anger was a smoldering thing, burning in deceptive silence until it detonated. She resisted the urge to shrink from him.

"Used you?" She laughed, high and unrepentant. "This is the least of the rebellions I could perform. As though you don't use the way I want you. As though you aren't thinking of pressing your skin to mine and letting us sink that both back into denial. Had you not been so distracting, I might have done something sooner"

He walked forward until he stood over her. The blood roared in her ears, and she tugged sharply with her own magic, kicking up a storm wind in the room. Books toppled from their piles.

“I distracted you?” He ran a hand over his head, a subtle crack in his composure. “Every time I think I might be willing to give you up I resist. And you know it. It is a weakness you exploit, even now.”

“It is the only advantage I have,” she said. “I would be a poor commander if I didn’t use it.”

His lip twisted. “Commander, soldier. These are things you have been made. Not things you are.”

“What would you have me be, then? An offering? A halla on an altar?” She laughed again, letting her brokenness pour into the noise. Letting him know how thoroughly angry she was.

“You would rather be a prisoner? Rather I let them tear you apart, as they asked?”

“What makes you think I want _any_ of this?” she whispered. “My want of you does not heal the fact that you took me here. It does not change the fact that I have suffered, every day, for years, waiting for you. Unable to give you up—even when I was on the field, I wanted you to intervene. I wanted a monster to save me, and that makes me monstrous. You tell me that I have been made into something new—any wrongness in me, any newness, that's your doing. You make me monstrous.”

His scoffed, walking away from her. With a flick of his wrist he began to restore order to the room. It made her angrier, that his reaction to her rage was to return to the mask he wore. The carefully cultivated _control_ that had governed his days with the Inquisition. She reached out her hand and set the velvet hangings over the bed on fire. He stopped, looking up at the blaze with fury radiating through every line of his long body. She lit the books next, one by one, her magic roaring through her until her eyes flared orange. _I will prove to him how monstrous I can be._ She muttered a few words and let the flames surge up her arms, her legs, wicking along her until she was entirely ablaze, the carpets and furs crumbling to ash beneath her feet. 

It was like the battlefield again. He stood in front of her, speaking in a low voice, but his words glanced off of her like the arrows she had dodged before. Until she had not. She gritted her teeth against the memory, vowing that it would never happen again. She would never be subjected to this weakness again, of needing his help, of waiting for him to act before she could. The blood in her ears was as loud as the flames that ate away at the very air around them. Dimly, she knew he had his hands on hers, shaking her, trying to wake her. _I am not his to wake._

She grabbed his face in her burning hands and pulled him into a kiss, and poured fire down through it. He tensed in her grasp, fighting her, and it was like before. When his magic had guided hers, but suddenly his magic was everywhere, and it was green but it was also shadows and flame. Shadows and burning red eyes in the gloom. It was vast and it had teeth. When confronted with the threat she was, it bit back. She felt a surge of triumph as her magic waded into his, burning, destructive. Proud to be a threat and to goad him. And then, it was done, and she was falling. Cut off. As the vastness of him snarled and severed her control.

She fell and fell, and in the same way she had felt his voice rather than heard it, she felt rather than heard her screams.

Eventually, the shadows caught her.

* * *

"Fen'harel, Inquisition ships have been spotted off of Llomerynn."

"Clean up, then vacate. Shatter the doors. I shall meet you at the seventeenth exit, by the van. Three days."

"Sir... she tried to kill you. As your general, I must object to keeping her nearby. Those that witnessed what happened on the field and in the throne room are restless."

"Restless, but not bold enough to bring their concerns to me?"

A low laugh. "Of course not. They fear you, but they fear for you, too. Her presence is a liability—she threatens everything." 

A pause. 

"Move forward with Tevinter. I'll send a message when I've arrived." 

"Where will you go?"

Another pause, heavy with a warning. "Away." 

* * *

The Fade was not a respite. Not as it could be. She thrashed and moaned, the pain following her into sleep. All the while, a wolf stalked the perimeter, keeping watch. Keeping her safe. 

In one of her brief moments of lucidity, she looked up into the trees and saw a face she knew. A face she recognized. She reached out and was pulled down again. 

The white-haired spirit slipped off in silence to relay what he had seen.

* * *

Water. Waves crashing against stone, the harsh cries of gulls overhead. She sat up in a rush, throwing back a threadbare blanket. She was still feverish—her skin crawled, dry and parched. A pitcher of water sat along a low table at the bedside. She poured a glass with shaking hands, gulping it down. 

She was in a low cottage, the rafters strung with dried garlands of herbs and tinkling shells threaded through twine. Salt and loam clustered together on her tongue. The bed was more a pallet on a frame, and the only other furniture in the building was a dining table with two places, an iron stove, and a worktable set into the far corner. It was sparse, utilitarian. The opposite of Fen'harel's quarters. A thrill of trepidation ran through her. 

"Solas?" she called out. When no one answered, she rose from the bed, taking the blanket with her. Her magic still rose to her call—she was whole, mostly unhurt. It stood out so heavily against the way she'd burned. The way she'd writhed even in her dreams, wracked with pain. A bucket on the floor held cloths and water, laid out beside the bed. A fire crackled in the hearth. She did a double take as she saw her armor and staff, folded neatly and piled in one of the chairs near the table. 

She walked to the driftwood door of the cottage, testing it tentatively. It was open. She pushed it aside, wincing as the gray sunlight struck her. 

The sea spread out all around her, the waves tossed some fifteen feet high before they crashed down. She squinted out toward the water. Land rose up in the distance, towering masses of rock and moss. _The Storm Coast?_

She walked around the cottage, picking her way through the loose stones and bracken. It sat atop a hill, elevated from the rest of the spit of rock. A path wound down toward a narrow shore. There were no boats, no other buildings. Nothing but the sky, the sea, and the cottage. She looked for Solas, wandered halfway down the switchbacked path to see if she could see him on the beach. She called out, her voice echoing into the open air. Eventually she made her way back toward the cottage, settling herself on a low bench outside and drawing her knees to her chest.

 _Alone. He left me alone again_.

A lone sea hawk swooped out over the breakers that tumbled toward the island. It dove down, emerging from the sea with a fish clamped in its beak, and flew toward the cliffs in the distance. She watched it in silence, chewing on her lower lip. She wasn't a poor swimmer, but the distance was great. Even at her full physical strength it would be a challenge. 

Next moves were easier to unpack. Formulaic. Planning the journey, gathering her gear. With her staff she might be able to freeze herself a path over the riotous sea. She watched the waves collide, willing herself to get up. To find the strength to move forward. To move on. 

She stayed seated as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon. The cold wind couldn't make her more numb than she was already.

"Vhenan?"

He came around from the other side of the cottage in familiar pilgrim's clothes, his roughspun tunic and green leggings. He had a basket in one hand, filled with root vegetables and herbs. _He's unhurt_.

She didn't answer, staring up at him dully. He walked toward her. His voice was gentle when he spoke. "Do you require assistance to stand?"

She shook her head, rising to her feet. She followed him back into the cottage. 

Once inside, he began to busy himself with washing and chopping the food he'd gathered. He lit candles and spun glowing orbs of green light into the air overhead, lighting the cabin from within. He took his time, his face turned from hers. She curled up in one of the chairs. 

Finally, he spoke. "I thought this might be the easiest place—neutral ground. For our discussion."

"Our discussion?" she asked, her voice hoarse. He paused. He pulled the kettle from the fire and poured hot water over a mug, handing the result to her. The tea bloomed in the hot water, herbal and fragrant. She took a tentative sip, and then another. With each sip her hands shook less and less. He tumbled the chopped vegetables into a cookpot and set it over the flames before settling himself across from her, his fingers steepled on the tabletop.

"Two things. First, I owe you an apology. I was greedy when I took you. It was ill-done, and it has cost us both. Your army diminishes their resources to reach you—mine waits for me to return to proceed. I cannot keep you. I never could. It was foolish to think otherwise... but our business was unfinished."

"Business," she said, in a low voice.

"We left so much unsaid—my fault, again. I want to tell you everything you want to know. I am... I am sorry that it took this long. I am sorry we came together in this way. I am sorry for hurting you, and for the suffering I have caused."

She wanted to lash out. To call him a monster again. But she knew he was truly sorry—he had never been anything else. He had only ever been openly guilty for his crimes, toward her and so, so many others. 

"Secondly." He toyed with the second mug of tea, a faint frown flickering over his otherwise impassive features. "I want to discuss how to end things." 

She spluttered into her tea. "I'm sorry?"

He smiled apologetically. "There is better phrasing, I'm sure. But I want to... close a door, so to speak. You said before that your want of me healed nothing, and you were right. I thought—I thought that my love of you might be worthy of overcoming what is between us. Might be enough of a bridge. To make us forget, at least for awhile. But I can see it has only caused you pain."

"Your love of me?" she breathed, scathing. "As though I do not love you, too."

He froze in his seat. When he spoke again, it was in the polite, calm tone that made her want to shatter the mug against the wall. "I would not dishonor your feelings by declaring them false, but I cannot allow them to sway me."

"Sway you from breaking me more thoroughly than you ever have?"

"This is all I can afford to offer. A clean break, instead of superficial bandaging of a wound neither of us can heal."

She tipped her chin toward the ceiling, leaning back in her chair with a sigh. He waited patiently, still toying with the mug. Weariness crept over her. "If you wanted to end things cleanly, you should have killed me. Should have let me burn until I was ash."

"Even monstrosity has its limits," he said quietly. She looked up at him sharply. It was a crack in his carefully constructed armor. She had hurt him before. She had meant to, and she had hurt him. 

She stood and walked to him. She settled herself in his lap, her hands on his shoulders. He didn't move to hold her, didn't look at her as she stared down at him. 

"I am sorry, ma vhenan," she whispered. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I am sorry we ended up here." She kissed his forehead. His ear. His nose. "I am sorry that I cannot accept your clean break. I am sorry that I would rather live through this pain than live without you." She kissed just at the corner of his mouth. Still he didn't move.

"Ir abelas, Solas. I said you made me into a monster, but I think I was already one. Too much a monster to let you go."


End file.
